WOOL TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 26, 1 February 1937, Page 4

WOOL TRADE.

NEW MARKETS WANTED.

PROSPECTS IX CHINA

Discussing the necessity for seeking fresh markets for wool Messrs. Winchcombe Carson, Limited, state: —

The greatest field for increased wool consumption is the East and particularly China. To-day purchasing power of the great bulk of the Chinese people k email, but in time it will expand. In the earlypart of this century the Japanese were more or less similarly situated but their use of wool in 30 years hae risen from an average of about 7000 bales annually to the present total of 700,000 bales to 800,000 bales in a year.

Thie season considerably increased purchases of wool have been made for China. That ie partly due to the establishment of a mill in China by Patone and Baldwins, a most important firm of Yorkshire spinnere with establishments also in Taemania and Canada. In the firet six months of this season exports of wool from New South Wales to China were 421 bales, an increase of 231 bales compared with the similar half year of 1935. Six modern mills are now in operation in the country, two being English owned, one Japanese and three Chinese.

Similar changes are showing in the character of China's imports as those noticca'ilc with Japan in the euly days of her industry. In the first 10 months of 1936 she imported 7,790,0001b of tope from Great Britain, whereas four years ago her imports of those goods were negligible. Simultaneously she has decreased her importation of yarns as she is now able to do her own spinning. Aβ time goes on she will prDbably reduce her purchases of tope and reach the stage of handling almost the whole of her own requirements from the raw material to the manufactured fabric. Ten yeai-e ago, Japan imported millions of pounds of tops from England but now her purchases of them have practically vanished. Development in China may be slow owing to the unrest evident but it is likely to be gradually seen.